“A widely reported Melbourne study has found that children raised by same-sex parents are healthier than those in the general population – but this result should be treated with great caution,” FamilyVoice research officer Ros Phillips said today. “The study design has serious methodological flaws.”

Heroin was once the scourge of the nation but not anymore. It's been well and truly supplanted by amphetamines. The latest crime stats released by the Australian Institute of Criminology show there were 16,828 people arrested in relation to amphetamine abuse in 2011-12, a 30 per cent increase in a year.

New research has revealed junior elite athletes as young as 12 are using performance-enhancing drugs. Researchers from the University of Canberra and Queensland's Griffith University have spent three years interviewing junior athletes.

Would you continue gambling on a poker machine if you knew there was no chance of winning the jackpot? Setting a 'jackpot expiry' time limit for a poker machine causes gamblers to walk away sooner, a new Australian study shows.

The Commonwealth is yet to pursue its costs from the High Court case that overturned last year's historic same-sex marriage reforms as many couples shun refunds offered by the ACT government. In a unanimous decision delivered on December 12, the High Court found changes to ACT law allowing for same-sex marriages could not operate concurrently with the federal Marriage Act. The decision, which included an order for the ACT to pay Commonwealth legal costs, came after couples registered their marriages during the five days of Australia's first – and only – marriage equality laws.

In remote Philippine villages and impoverished urban areas increasing numbers of children, including toddlers, are being forced to perform sex acts that are streamed online to paedophiles around the world. Police say the Philippines has emerged as the key hub of a billion-dollar cybersex industry where most of the victims are under 18 but some are as young as two.

The 41 Sri Lankan asylum seekers transferred by Australian authorities to Sri Lanka have arrived at the Galle Magistrates Court for an appearance before a local magistrate. The 37 Sinhalese and four Tamils, including some women and children, are expected to be bailed shortly on charges of leaving the country illegally, a breach of Sri Lanka's Immigrants and Emigrants Act.